[Buddha-l] moghapurisa

Joy Vriens jvriens at free.fr
Sat Oct 20 01:52:18 MDT 2007


Piya,

>"Misguided man" is another possible translation. Another interesting 
>clsoe translation might be TS Eliot's  "Hollow Men" (where "empty men" 
>is also mentioned). I wonder if Eliot knew of mogha,purisa. He alluded 
>to the Fire Sermon, though. 

We 're leaving the original meaning far behind, yet from another point of view are defining it more clearly. We are interpreting, but I think it is the best thing to do. And then hollow men is not bad at all. 

And this reminds me of the very impressive Blaise Pascal, whose biography (by André Le Gall) I am reading currently, and his views about "divertissement" and "man without God" (translated man without Dharma or Tao for the more sensitive ones amongst us). It's not so much that man is hollow, because he fills himself with anything he thinks will fill him up but doesn't really, but rather that he is lacking what is most vital and fullfilling. I see also links to David Loy and his "lack" theories and Paul Diel with his false motivations and essential motivation.

Joy



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